So, I know this can be a contentious subject and I don't know what's happened with me lately, but I'm sort of shopping for a new tripod.
A little bit of back story-years ago when I first got into photography, I was in high school/college and realized I needed a sturdy tripod but didn't have a lot of money. A lot of research and discussion on Photo.net(back in the Greenspun days when it was good...), including repeated links to Thom Hogan's infamous "How to save $700 on a tripod" ensued with the argument not flying even then that the $1K Hogan was advocating spending was more than what i had tied up in my kit at the time and was unfathomable.
Going my own way and acting as I am still known to do, I ended up buying an original Marcioni Tilt-All. It was $100 delivered to me, and remains an insanely good tripod despite lacking a lot of modern features and being heavy. I added a couple more along the way, and Chuck Rubin in Louisville(I have to name drop since Chuck remains so awesome) sold me a couple of stupidly heavy studio tripods in my 4x5 flirtation days including a lovely wooden one that's horribly impractical with a geared video head. I've used those so rarely because they are so heavy, and in fact all three of those tripods have yet to make the move with me since moving here to St. Louis 3 years ago(I'm planning to at least grab the Tilt-all this coming weekend). My Tiltall does need a bit of work, but nothing impossible-I think it needs a new mounting screw since I used it for years without realizing the one on it was short and I always had issues with cameras rotating on it because I just couldn't lock them down tight enough.
2017-ish when I started really seriously diving in again I decided it was time to move up to the "big boy" world with a proper carbon fiber tripod and an Arca-Swiss compatible head. That became a really easy decision when I visited the other big Louisville camera store(Murphy's-the main store on Bardstown Road) and they had a beautiful nearly unused Arca-Swiss B1 in their used case. They had it attractively priced because the B1 is no longer current, but I decided that I could live without the improvements the Z1 offered(built in bubble level and easier to use tension locks were the main ones I saw-AFAIK the eccentric ball and other touches that made the basic Arca Swiss ball so loved didn't really change). Of course a tripod head without legs is useless, and I ended up that day buying a set of Bogen 190 CF legs. They were inexpensive and reviewed favorably, although seemed pretty basic. They put the two together for me(Don Sivori-still there and absolutely awesome, as are all the people at Murphys if anyone here ever frequents there-loctited the locking screws since he warned me they tended to work loose on Bogen/Manfrotto legs) and I was out the door for something like $250.
I then of course went whole-hog on equipping my cameras with QR plates. Most of the things I use now wear fitted RRS or Kirk plates, my big lenses have Kirk or RRS feet on them, and my X-T5 even has the accessory grip thqat has an AS-type dovetail on the bottom. Of course too I have piles of generic plates to fit to older cameras that don't have dedicated plates available.
I had always intended those legs to be a stop-gap while I shopped for something else, but 6 years later here I am still with them. I've carted them all over the country, and they are light enough that I don't mind hauling them pretty much anywhere with me. I have 30 second exposures in the wind that are tack sharp, and just generally haven't had any complaints until recently. Of course I too generally use a remote/cable release or the self timer for this stuff.
I don't know what's changed, but I've gone on a bit of a binge of trying to use auto fine tune on my D5 and D850 for a few specific lenses. The 135mm f/2 DC is high on the list, and it's one that's honestly sat unused for a while because it's notoriously poor focusing and I haven't taken the time to really dial it in properly(and I've never liked manual fine tune since it's so easy to mess up). Basically my set-up for AF fine tune is to put the tripod on the floor, legs totally unextended, needless to say center column all the way down(I've maybe extended it a few times in owning it-it's a pretty rare thing). I'll lock everything down, but the auto fine tune requires quite a bit of manipulation on the camera to engage, and Nikon didn't see fit to put a delay in between hitting "okay" and giving the camera ~5 seconds to settle down. I've been getting repeated refusals to fine tune despite doing everything else right(and using test targets people have designed just for this) so I'm starting to think maybe the issue is in my tripod.
So, I'm shopping for legs. At first I was just going to go Gitzo and be done with it, but they leave me confused and where I think I need to end up leaves me at $1200+. I tried looking at RRS, but got some real sticker shock(even though I know this will hopefully be a long-serving purchase) at about 30-50% more than a comparable Gitzo. Thom Hogan did a comprehensive review not too long ago of "budget" tripods and I've read it a few times, but am not sure how I really feel about investing in any of them.
So, for those of you who use a tripod, where are you now on your product choices?
Here are my requirements:
1. CF is a must. I've been spoiled, and the weight of it over aluminum opens up a world where I'd otherwise leave the tripod at home or in the car.
2. I'm tall-6'2"-and ideally I'm looking for 65" without raising the center column. 60" is doable considering that a head+plate+camera can give me 8-12" from the top of the legs to the viewfinder, but really 65" is a better number.
3. Since I rarely fly with tripods, and am not averse to checking if I need to, 3 section is fine for me and preferred for the greater rigidity.
4. Of course I want low also. Also ideally I can get low with the legs fully extended, but some combination of wide leg opening plus less than fully extended is workable also.
5. My weight requirements are decently high. A typical combo would be something like a D850+24-70 f/2.8, but need it to handle a 300 2.8 and D5 with weight to spare. The first is a little over 2kg, or we'll say 5lbs to give some allowance. The latter is 4.5kg, or we'll call it 10lbs.
Any thoughts on the above?
5. I'm not caught up on brands. I know I've talked about Arca-Swiss, Gitzo, RRS, and Bogen/Manfrotto in this post, but really if there's a brand I've never heard of that offers me what I want and is stable, I'm open to it.
A little bit of back story-years ago when I first got into photography, I was in high school/college and realized I needed a sturdy tripod but didn't have a lot of money. A lot of research and discussion on Photo.net(back in the Greenspun days when it was good...), including repeated links to Thom Hogan's infamous "How to save $700 on a tripod" ensued with the argument not flying even then that the $1K Hogan was advocating spending was more than what i had tied up in my kit at the time and was unfathomable.
Going my own way and acting as I am still known to do, I ended up buying an original Marcioni Tilt-All. It was $100 delivered to me, and remains an insanely good tripod despite lacking a lot of modern features and being heavy. I added a couple more along the way, and Chuck Rubin in Louisville(I have to name drop since Chuck remains so awesome) sold me a couple of stupidly heavy studio tripods in my 4x5 flirtation days including a lovely wooden one that's horribly impractical with a geared video head. I've used those so rarely because they are so heavy, and in fact all three of those tripods have yet to make the move with me since moving here to St. Louis 3 years ago(I'm planning to at least grab the Tilt-all this coming weekend). My Tiltall does need a bit of work, but nothing impossible-I think it needs a new mounting screw since I used it for years without realizing the one on it was short and I always had issues with cameras rotating on it because I just couldn't lock them down tight enough.
2017-ish when I started really seriously diving in again I decided it was time to move up to the "big boy" world with a proper carbon fiber tripod and an Arca-Swiss compatible head. That became a really easy decision when I visited the other big Louisville camera store(Murphy's-the main store on Bardstown Road) and they had a beautiful nearly unused Arca-Swiss B1 in their used case. They had it attractively priced because the B1 is no longer current, but I decided that I could live without the improvements the Z1 offered(built in bubble level and easier to use tension locks were the main ones I saw-AFAIK the eccentric ball and other touches that made the basic Arca Swiss ball so loved didn't really change). Of course a tripod head without legs is useless, and I ended up that day buying a set of Bogen 190 CF legs. They were inexpensive and reviewed favorably, although seemed pretty basic. They put the two together for me(Don Sivori-still there and absolutely awesome, as are all the people at Murphys if anyone here ever frequents there-loctited the locking screws since he warned me they tended to work loose on Bogen/Manfrotto legs) and I was out the door for something like $250.
I then of course went whole-hog on equipping my cameras with QR plates. Most of the things I use now wear fitted RRS or Kirk plates, my big lenses have Kirk or RRS feet on them, and my X-T5 even has the accessory grip thqat has an AS-type dovetail on the bottom. Of course too I have piles of generic plates to fit to older cameras that don't have dedicated plates available.
I had always intended those legs to be a stop-gap while I shopped for something else, but 6 years later here I am still with them. I've carted them all over the country, and they are light enough that I don't mind hauling them pretty much anywhere with me. I have 30 second exposures in the wind that are tack sharp, and just generally haven't had any complaints until recently. Of course I too generally use a remote/cable release or the self timer for this stuff.
I don't know what's changed, but I've gone on a bit of a binge of trying to use auto fine tune on my D5 and D850 for a few specific lenses. The 135mm f/2 DC is high on the list, and it's one that's honestly sat unused for a while because it's notoriously poor focusing and I haven't taken the time to really dial it in properly(and I've never liked manual fine tune since it's so easy to mess up). Basically my set-up for AF fine tune is to put the tripod on the floor, legs totally unextended, needless to say center column all the way down(I've maybe extended it a few times in owning it-it's a pretty rare thing). I'll lock everything down, but the auto fine tune requires quite a bit of manipulation on the camera to engage, and Nikon didn't see fit to put a delay in between hitting "okay" and giving the camera ~5 seconds to settle down. I've been getting repeated refusals to fine tune despite doing everything else right(and using test targets people have designed just for this) so I'm starting to think maybe the issue is in my tripod.
So, I'm shopping for legs. At first I was just going to go Gitzo and be done with it, but they leave me confused and where I think I need to end up leaves me at $1200+. I tried looking at RRS, but got some real sticker shock(even though I know this will hopefully be a long-serving purchase) at about 30-50% more than a comparable Gitzo. Thom Hogan did a comprehensive review not too long ago of "budget" tripods and I've read it a few times, but am not sure how I really feel about investing in any of them.
So, for those of you who use a tripod, where are you now on your product choices?
Here are my requirements:
1. CF is a must. I've been spoiled, and the weight of it over aluminum opens up a world where I'd otherwise leave the tripod at home or in the car.
2. I'm tall-6'2"-and ideally I'm looking for 65" without raising the center column. 60" is doable considering that a head+plate+camera can give me 8-12" from the top of the legs to the viewfinder, but really 65" is a better number.
3. Since I rarely fly with tripods, and am not averse to checking if I need to, 3 section is fine for me and preferred for the greater rigidity.
4. Of course I want low also. Also ideally I can get low with the legs fully extended, but some combination of wide leg opening plus less than fully extended is workable also.
5. My weight requirements are decently high. A typical combo would be something like a D850+24-70 f/2.8, but need it to handle a 300 2.8 and D5 with weight to spare. The first is a little over 2kg, or we'll say 5lbs to give some allowance. The latter is 4.5kg, or we'll call it 10lbs.
Any thoughts on the above?
5. I'm not caught up on brands. I know I've talked about Arca-Swiss, Gitzo, RRS, and Bogen/Manfrotto in this post, but really if there's a brand I've never heard of that offers me what I want and is stable, I'm open to it.
